Hurricane Maria and Storm Surge
Oral
Jennifer Irish, PhD
Professor
Virginia Tech
Taylor Asher, PE
graduate student
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Currently, joint probability surge hazard assessments use discrete storm simulations each is assigned a probability mass, rather than defining surges for the continuum of probability densities. This introduces uncertainty because it does not capture the natural structure inherent in surge response. In contrast, physically based surge response functions (SRFs) capture natural structure and allow continuously defined probability densities. But, application of SRFs in hazard assessments is not widely used due a lack of systematic methods for spatial interpolation throughout complex floodplains. The use of spatially derived empirical orthogonal functions to overcome this spatial interpolation challenge is explored.